[Marxism] Polar bears

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Independent
9 September 2007 09:04

The appalling fate of the polar bear, symbol of the Arctic
It has been declared at risk by conservation groups. Yet rich Westerners 
are paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of shooting an animal 
whose very existence is already threatened by environmental disaster. 
Geoffrey Lean reports from Ilulissat, Greenland, on a fight for survival

Polar bears – the very symbol of the Arctic's looming environmental 
disaster – are crashing towards extinction as a result of global 
warming, the US government has found. The admission, the result of a 
massive investigation by the Bush administration, could force the 
President finally to take action against climate change.

The development comes at the end of the most momentous week in the human 
history of the Arctic, which is warming faster than anywhere else in the 
world. Satellite observations have revealed that its ice has shrunk to 
much its lowest ever level, raising fears that it had reached a "tipping 
point" where it would melt irreversibly, disappearing altogether in 
summer in less than 25 years, with incalculable global consequences,

And a separate Independent on Sunday investigation has found that polar 
bears are being shot in alarming numbers by rich trophy hunters from the 
US, Europe and Japan, even as their increasingly fragile habitat melts 
beneath them. Campaigners know that climate change and pollution are the 
biggest threats to polar bear survival, but believe that stopping sports 
hunting is symbolically important. Former US presidential candidate 
Senator John Kerry is leading the fight.

"It's time to put the polar bear on the endangered species list, and 
give them a fighting chance at survival," he said. "Not only must these 
bears contend with their home melting away, but they are also being 
hunted in the limited habitat they have left. It's time to take 
responsibility for their survival."

And Environment Secretary Hilary Benn told the IoS yesterday: "As a 
result of climate change we are already witnessing the destruction of 
polar bear habitats, and the idea that people would consider trophy 
hunting these great creatures is unacceptable."

American hunters exploit a loophole in the Marine Mammal Protection Act 
that allows them to get licences to import polar bear trophies from 
Canada. Some 953 have been granted or applied for since 1994. Senator 
Kerry is now co-sponsoring with Republican Senator Olympia Snowe a 
proposed Polar Bear Protection Act in the US Senate that would stop the 
skins being imported.

At the same time comes the polar bear investigation – conducted by the 
US Geological Survey – which concluded that the world population would 
be cut by two-thirds by the middle of the century as the result of the 
melting of the ice. This is likely to be over-optimistic because, as the 
survey itself admits, it is based on estimates of the rate of the ice's 
disappearance that fall far short of what is actually taking place. New 
evidence also suggests that chemical pollution, wafted up to the Arctic, 
is interfering with the bears' abilities to reproduce.

The study is hugely significant because it was ordered by President 
Bush's Interior Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, as a response to pressure to 
list the species under the US Endangered Species Act. Its conclusions 
make the listing virtually impossible to refuse. Once the species is 
covered by the act, US agencies would be bound by law to take into 
account how their decisions could affect it – leading to action to 
control the growth of the pollution that causes global warming.

The Arctic crisis has become so compelling that leaders of the world's 
main religions gathered this weekend on the iceberg-studded sea off this 
small town, deep in the Arctic Circle on the west Greenland coast, to 
pray for the planet. Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of the 
Greek Orthodox church – who convened the group – told them: "the danger 
of an avoidable catastrophe is now more acute than ever." On Friday 
senior representatives of the Roman Catholic and protestant churches, 
Sunni and Shia Islam,and the Hebrew, Hindu, Shinto and Buddhist Zen 
religions joined the Patriarch in silent prayer on the prow of a liner 
under a lowering sky in the shadow of giant icebergs.

The icebergs are calving from the rapidly melting Sermeq Kujalleq 
glacier – near this town of 4,400 people and 2,500 sled dogs – which is 
disappearing at a rate of a staggering 35 cubic kilometres, or 8.4 cubic 
miles, a year. Every day enough ice breaks away to provide water for 
everyone in London for a year. The biggest glacier in Greenland, it is 
retreating at a rate of 10 miles a year, five times as fast as 10 years 
ago, as temperatures rise three times as fast as in the rest of the 
world. Much the same melting is occurring all over the island. The giant 
Helheim glacier on the east coast, for example – which had remained 
stable since records began – has retreated four and a half miles. Since 
1995 the island's vast icecap has lost 300 feet in height.

Robert Corell, who heads the world's main monitoring project on the 
region– the international Arctic Climate Impact Assessment – said the 
melting was becoming "catastrophic", and experts increasingly fear that 
it is approaching the point where the disappearance of the entire icecap 
becomes inevitable. That would raise sea-levels worldwide by over 20 
feet, inundating coastal cities.

The Arctic's sea ice may already have reached such a tipping point. Up 
to five years ago the sea around this town – whose name means "iceberg" 
in the local language – froze every winter; now it remains open 
throughout the year.

Last week the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Denver, Colorado, 
announced that the sea ice had shrunk to 2.05 million square miles in 
August 2007; its previous record low was 2.14 million square miles two 
years ago. It means that a staggering 200,000 sq miles of ice is now 
open sea for the first time. This year the fabled Northwest Passage 
through northern Canada opened, while the North-east Passage around 
Siberia is blocked by just a single tongue of ice. Scientists expect 
that they will both shortly open simultaneously, making it possible to 
sail round the North Pole for the first time

The speed of the melting has taken everyone by surprise; computer models 
used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict sea ice 
should not retreat so far until around 2050. Traditionally the ice 
reaches its annual minimum in the first week of September, so it should 
soon start increasing again for the winter. But another record low is 
expected for next summer. Dr Mark Serreze of the Snow and Ice Data 
Centre describes the ice as being in a "death spiral... If this is not 
at or near a tipping point right now, then I'd hate to see what that 
looks like." A couple of years ago he would not have expected the Arctic 
to lose all its ice until the end of the century; now he expects it by 
2030. This is predicted to have massive global consequences, disrupting 
the monsoon and bringing prolonged drought to the American midwest, 
which helps to feed 100 nations.

The crisis has already hit this town, where hunters can no longer go out 
on the ice, threatening the Inuit's very raison d'être. In the past year 
alone 14 young men committed suicide in this small town. And both polar 
bear and Inuit are accumulating high concentrations of chemicals in 
their bodies from pollution brought by the winds from the far south. 
Polar bears are among the most contaminated animals on earth, while 
Inuit in Greenland have 70 times as much of one pesticide in their 
bodies as people in Canada. New evidence suggests that the contamination 
is affecting the ability of both to reproduce.


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